Thursday, November 29, 2012

Cyber Monday.

As I was sitting in my living room Monday, legs crossed, Post-its out, pen and credit card ready, I began my searching.  After only a few short hours I was completed, yet I still had this yearning to continue shopping.  When the day was over I realized that I had actually bought more than what I wanted to (buying something for each person on my list and then some).  I kept trying to justify my reason for buy a Beatles guitar case for my cousin when she already has a guitar case, or buying the complete series of Sanford and Son for my father.

Now that it has been a few days and I'm receiving emails that my products have shipped, I find myself with mixed feelings about my purchases; pondering whether I am experiencing post-decision dissonance or in post-decision regret.  I ask myself:  'Am I happy with what I bought?  Should I have bought something else (or nothing at all)? Do I need to physically hold and touch the product before I buy it?'

Shopping online verses shopping in a store both have completely different ways of consuming.  For example, you can physically hold the product in store and you have to guess if the product will work for you online.  What I have learned from this experience is that we, as consumers, cannot base all of our shopping on just medium like I did here - we have to get out of our comfort zones at times and consume new ways.  As future marketers, we need to be aware of how the consumers are shopping and try to innovate new ways for them to consume products.  And maybe, that is having a Black Friday and Cyber Monday or it could be something that no one has thought of yet.

2 comments:

  1. I agree that shopping in person and being able to physically hold the product is better than having to guess if the product will work for you online. I made a purchase online of shorts, "guessing" that the product would work for me. The shorts were not the colors that the image had shown online and made me very frustrated. I learned that it is better to physcially hold and see the product then shopping online and "guessing".

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  2. I have had that same struggle of whether it is better to buy online or in person. But I notice that I have a higher chance of not having post-decision regret if I shop in person. Maybe that is because I touch, examine, feel, and really take in the product when I am in person versus online where a picture is all I can go from. When I bought my sister a Christmas present last year offline it ended up being completely different then what the picture had shown. I was so regretful and ended up buying her a completely new present.

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